FEBRUARY 21, 1957

SAN MARCOS, Texas—I saw by the paper in El Paso this morning that the President has appealed to Israel to withdraw their troops assuring them that they have been given all the guarantees of safety that they should expect. I wish I knew what those guarantees really were because unless they include a notice to Egypt that it must permit the U.N. forces to occupy the Gaza Strip and supervise the Aqaba Gulf there is really no guarantee of a peaceful future. Israel must be assured of survival. France and Great Britain want to be assured that their vital interests, which affect their economic future, are safeguarded by the settlement of the Suez Canal question, but they are in no danger of being wiped off the face of the earth. Egypt and the other Arab states have minced no words in telling Israel that that was their intention whenever they were adequately prepared, so it is obvious that when the President says that Israel has all the assurances that she can expect, these must include an arrangement with Egypt and the U.N.

I was also interested to see that Senator Knowland does not wish to give any economic aid to Poland or any other Communist state. Poland is a satellite but it has shown signs of aspirations for freedom and, in spite of the dictatorship of Tito, this holds good of Yugoslavia as well. To close the door to any economic advantages for these countries is to permanently insist that they must get their help from the Soviet Union and I hardly think that is wise or statesmanlike. We are not going to help them gain their freedom by going to war for them. Are we also going to refuse to help build up their economic strength? If we do that, we condemn them to be dependent on the Soviet Union and to remain forever Communist satellite states.

Here I am in San Marcos, Texas, which is the last lecture engagement on this trip but I must go back and tell you some of the happenings in the last two days.

Saturday evening in San Francisco Adlai Stevenson spoke at a fund raising dinner for the Democratic party. I was unable to hear him because I was committed to speak for several groups of Hadassah in Oakland. This was a very successful dinner dance and I felt that though they called it their donor party they really hardly needed me to interrupt the good time that everyone was enjoying.

We caught an 8:30 plane for Las Vegas on Sunday morning as I wanted to get as many hours as possible with my son Elliott and his wife in Phoenix, Arizona, and they assured me in N.Y. that to fly to Las Vegas and change to Bonanza Airlines there for Phoenix would get me in an hour earlier than I could arrive in any other way. No fog Sunday morning to our joy and we got off on time but troubles awaited us in Las Vegas. Bonanza Airlines had confirmed four more people for the trip than they could take. They asked us what we weighed and told us we had no reservations and were on a waiting list! But the lecture agent had had our tickets for two weeks, so this seemed ridiculous and in addition we had confirmed the flight all the way through the night before in San Francisco and we explained that we had to get out on the plane. Finally, after an hour's delay, they put us on but said we had to leave our bags for the next flight. They promised to deliver them within ¾ of an hour after their arrival on the next flight. I had my doubts because I had already decided that this was a very confused and badly run airline. My fears proved correct. From the time the bags should have reached Phoenix my son spent at least an hour on the telephone at different intervals trying to trace them. They were finally delivered at the station just before we took the train at 10:40 p.m. for El Paso! All's well that ends well, and we had a good night's sleep and flew out of El Paso on time, arriving in San Antonio on time where we were met and driven to the home of the President of the State Teacher's College here in San Marcos. To my joy Elliott's youngest son, David, who is in school in Austin, Texas, was brought over by some friends and met us in the airport. He is 15 now and was very pleased to be allowed off from school and to have the opportunity of being here for the lecture tonight.